Posted on 01/23/2004 3:11:04 PM PST by Federalist 78
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The post-abortion movement is picking up steam and women who are sharing the tragedies of their abortion experiences are rapidly becoming the face of the pro-life movement and encouraging young women not to make the same mistakes they did.
Led by actress and model Jennifer O'Neill, women who regret their abortions participated in the March for Life, where they held hundreds of signs saying just that. They also planned their own rallies to promote their message.
O'Neill was joined at a rally at the Supreme Court on Thursday by actress and singer Melba Moore and Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Luana Stoltemberg, a 43 year-old from Iowa, attended the rally. She said she began regretting her abortions when she realized they had robbed her of the ability to have children. Later, she adopted children.
"I've had three abortions and that hurts women like me,'' she told the Associated Press. "It devastates us physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.''
Similar rallies were being staged by the group across the country.
Vikki Raymond attended a rally in California and told how she was 22 and already had one daughter when she decided to have an abortion.
"They put us on gurneys and lined us up in the hallways," Raymond, now 43, told the Press Enterprise newspaper. "I remember lying there, and we couldn't even look at each other because we all knew what we were there for."
Raymond grew up in a family that backed abortion but said, "I wish someone would have told me about the shame and guilt and remorse."
The Silent No More Awareness Campaign is one of many organized efforts to focus on women's negative abortion experiences.
It is a joint project of Priests for Life and the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life, seeks to raise awareness about the harm abortion does to women and their families, and about the many healing programs available.
Another organized post-abortion effort is Operation Outcry. They also held numerous events across the nation Thursday.
"We represent women who are not yet ready to break the silence: women who are suffering from their choice to end the life of their unborn babies but who cannot yet face the pain, the hurt, and the guilt they feel and have caused themselves and others. Shame and fear keep them quiet. Others are alone and convinced that they are the only ones hurting," said Joyce Zounis, Colorado state leader for Operation Outcry.
Susan Renne Mosley, director of Women's Outreach for Operation Outcry, who had an abortion at age 15 shares, "It's time to speak honestly about the pain we've lived with. Abortion hurts and it is a much harder choice to live with after the fact than adoption or child rearing. I know because I have lived with all three.
Mosley said her group wants to help women and men who are hurting from abortions to find peace.
"This effort will let them know they're not alone; they don't have to live their life in pain anymore," Mosley said. "There is hope and healing after abortion. We've found help and they can too. They need to know about the programs, books and resources available to help them."
Related web sites:
Silent No More - http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org
Operation Outcry - http://www.operationoutcry.org
My 5 year old knows that when you kill someone it is forever, and that murder is wrong. He also knows that sex causes babies.
What hogwash!
These women do a good thing by talking out, but nothing is ever going to relieve their guilt. Tough. They should have thought about that before they killed someone.
I have no pity for them. I respect them for reaching out to help others not make the same mistakes, but I can not forgive.
It is not for me to forgive.
Their guilt is something they will have to live with. Just like anyone else who kills another person.
Making excuses for their lack of understanding , is playing into the pity party of selfish , lazy, self centered women.
A woman who is pregnant has already had her choice , she chose sex.... a woman who is a victim of a crime,should not be victimized twice, as hard as it it to accept.
Not understanding about sex , is not the same as rape.
Please don't make it sound like women are victims just for being young or being female, because their flirty little brains could just not comprehend that sex can mean babies.
....Jennifer O'Niel mentioned that when she had her abortion years ago, the abortion clinque told her it was just a blob and not yet alive , of course we know better now.
Just because she has someone else to place the blame upon ,doesn't mean she isn't at fault for not understanding her body, her motivations for sex, the outcome of murdering someone, the outcome of killing her own baby, (on and on)
Women are responsible for their own actions , their own bodies and the ramifications if they kill their own child.
A woman who is pregnant knows that the fetus growing inside her is not blob, if someone gives her an out and she wants to be selfish, she will take it and place the blame anywhere else.
Sure the abortions mills have led people astray.. they have led the willing astray.
Yes, those things are true. That is why adults need to speak up and tell children that it is not OK to have un protected sex at too early an age, and that there are ramifications to their actions.
Adults should not make the excuse that women who have abortions do not know better.
It is up to everyone to speak out against abortion. You and I are society. If a society makes a stand, young confused girls here that as well as what the abortions mills and liberals have to say.
These women , who have had abortions do a service to society by speaking out. But for them it is too late. They have to live with their guilt. I don't feel sorry for them, but I commend what they are doing.
Good people make mistakes, but it is time for people who believe abortion is murder to stand up and make some noise.
IF these girls have no parents to guide them, knowing how society has to say is the way young confused girls will know it is not acceptable to have adult relationships before they are ready to handle the consequences.
Any woman with a fetus growing inside her knows that she is the giver of life , and that taking that life is selfish, no matter what anyone tells her.
I am just not willing to let young girls off the hook so easily. I was a young girl once, so were you.. having reverence for life and the instinct to protect your child is not something anyone anywhere gives us. It is an innate drive and is difficult to be ignored, unless you really really want to quiet it.
They don't use impulse-control, they don't use birth control, then they run to get an abortion and don't want anyone else to be able to get one in the future?
Whatever happened to Personal Responsibility?
Logically and legally the baby should only be killed if he/she could be convicted of a capital crime or if the victim is not human (and therefore not really a victim). I've never quite understood how a "right to privacy" magically confers to one the right to kill: if I take someone into the privacy of my bedroom, am I suddenly exempt from murder charges if I plunge a knife into their chest? And why does this only apply to women?
The only other way to justify abortion is as the Nazis justified the holocaust and American slaveowners justified slavery: rob the victim of its humanity. Evolution, with its implication (and outright dogma) of man as an animal, has made this second approach palatable.
In the case where a woman, caught up in the PP propaganda and the lack of judgement of one owned by fear (young, poor, pregnant, whatever), she can and should be accepted if heartily repentant. To do otherwise is to overlook our own moral shortcomings. Her burden, in this life and the next, is between her and God.
I'm suspicious of women who are regretful only because of phyisological consequences (i.e. "I'm sterile now").
They found out later she did not have Cancer or any other medical urgency to take the baby.
It was a boy.
My Grandmother had a nervous breakdown, from which she did not recover for a long time.
She had a third child and suffered postpartum depression ,so great she was hospitalized for almost a year. She never was able to break the constant guilt and depression that resulted from the loss of her son.
My mother, her third child missed the bonding experience of her mother, and my Mother suffered from those repercussions her entire life.
OF course there are some cases where taking the child does save the mother's life... And in the case of rape, where the woman should be given a choice.
These cases are hard to grasp, but IMO, the reality is there are few cases where I could understand the loss of a baby.
Anything less to me is an excuse, and has far reaching consequences.
Teenagers who acidently get pregnant need to be told to see it through, or they will suffer their entire lives.
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